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Ship Yards.

"The Tub". A 50 foot cargo ship recently built for my Friday D&D game. It have some work I want to do on it yet, mainly refinements to appearence. It is usable as it is.

Next is the "Windwalker" This model is old and I do mean. Over 20 years old and it is much worse for wear. It is about to gain from the lessons I have learned since, including The Tub. The other side can be seen in the first Tub picture. The fore and aft decks were not designed to come off on this.

And last a project stalled for 15 years. A schooner whom I could not figure out how to clad the sides. Thanks to The Tub I now know how.

Incidenally the ribs are not thick for strength, they are thick for gluing surface.

Garry AKA --Phoenix-- Rising above the Flames. My favorite game console is a table and chairs. The Olde Phoenix Inn

These are awesome . Any chance you can provide us with pictures of an actual game session? I haven't seen that many. I mean I've seen a few in some product manuals but those are obviously very expensive and not something you'd see in many games at all. The only other "real" tabletop 3D terrain I've seen is Monte Cooks use of Dwarven Forge stuff in his Ptolus campaigns. Absolutely delicious. Thank you for sharing

Well, generally you have to mount the cardstock on something, so you can always weigh it down with either weights in the base or mount it on plywood. Another thing that quite a few of the cardstock guys do is to make what they call a masterboard. It's a full sized piece of cardstock, roughly 24 x 36 or close to that, they glue either the hooks or the loops of velcro strips about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in size every inch on the base. Then they put the same sized other piece on the four corners on the base of each model piece. So when you want to put together a dungeon or town or whatever, you place the model bases on the main masterboard and you don't get the stuff moving around.

For a better explaination than I give, Chunky Dungeons. I couldn't find a link to just the masterboard, but if you click on the link to that product then play the movie, it shows a masterboard during the movie.

Cardstock is good for models. I have a couple of boxes of cardstock buildings from the old Battlesystem set. Cardstock is easy to build if you take your time and follow the directions.

Yea, I used wood. And yes I scratched those up. The fact the Windwalker is as old as she is, even with the damage shows the durability.

To some extent if you are building off the cuff as I am it it easier to use wood or plastic. Each of those models contains a great many small pieces. A cardstock model has to be carefully planned out to get the desired shape.

The Tub is was built off a resized deck plan out of the Stormwrack book. The Caravel I believe was the plan I was sent. The DM wanted it 50 feet long not 60. Easy enough. I resized the deck plan on the computer, printed it and cut it out. This becomes my templet.

I then cut the deck in half lengthwise and traced it onto the wood. I cut the two deck halves and even them with sandpaper. Once even I glue them together. This is the best way I have found to get a deck symmetrical left to right.

I turned the deck over and spaced ribs of soft 1/4 inch balsa around the edges. The width is for gluing surface not strength. Most of the ribs are 1x1 inch squares of wood. I then glued the bottom to the deck, cardstock in this case.

Using a sanding block I sanded the contours in to the ribs.

The sides are mostly thin balsa sheet glued to the ribs and including the rail part. They are glued one rib to rib piece at a time. Around the bow I had to resort to thicker and smaller wood planks. Without a steaming rig it is extremely difficult to get wood to conform to a sharp curve of any kind.

More sanding to even out the shape of the ship.

The deck houses are constricted the same way.

I used CA glue throughout the process, both thin and gap filling. The CA has the added benefit of soaking into the soft wood and plastsizing it, making it stronger. I also use Squadron white putty to fill and even things out. It is soft enough to sand similar to the way the wood does.

A final sand with 200 grit paper I primed with "Mr. Surfacer 500" a surface smoothing sandable primer. Sanded that with 400 grit sandpaper and painted.

The Tub took two days of fairly steady hard work. Is s far from a perfect job and I don't consider it finished.

Garry AKA --Phoenix-- Rising above the Flames. My favorite game console is a table and chairs. The Olde Phoenix Inn

Wow those ships are outstanding. I've been looking for a few good wooden, plastic an/or card stock ship(s) to use in a pirate based campaign that I have begun. I currently have a flip mat that I picked up but nothing that compares to the above models.